Ignore this "phenomenon" if you want to, it's hard because of all the "copy cat" networks out there.
Nothing new. Major Bowes and Ted Mack and his Original Amatuer Hours from the London Dockside ! Next we are going to see "variety shows" like Ed Sullivan making a comeback !
Courtesy of Reuters....
'Idol' Creator Busy with Next Big Music Idea
Tue July 1, 2003 03:11 PM ET
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - British music mogul Simon Fuller didn't set out to dominate popular entertainment worldwide.
But the publicity-shy entrepreneur who created the Spice Girls, "American Idol" and British pop group S Club 7 is on his way to becoming one of the most influential figures in mainstream pop culture.
And he's only just started.
How about an animated show for preschoolers based on music? A putative teen show that Fuller describes as a singing, dancing version of "Moulin Rouge?" Or "I Love Music" -- a weekly magazine-style TV show expected to debut in Britain next year.
These are just some of the ideas tumbling around the head of the most successful British music manager since Brian Epstein helped make The Beatles a global phenomenon in the 1960s.
Fuller, 42, can't stop bubbling with enthusiasm, detailing at least five new concepts aimed at making music into multimedia entertainment with worldwide potential.
"I'm living ahead always. Hopefully the best ideas are yet to come. Understanding mainstream is probably what I do best. I enjoy that. I'm excited by having a notion or an artist that can touch the world and go from zero to 100 in the space of a year or less," Fuller, 42, told Reuters in a rare interview.
"I think the music industry is too one-dimensional. They need to step back and instead of saying it is dying, acknowledge that music is hot and happening."
Since he founded his London-based 19 Entertainment Group in 1984, the artists Fuller has managed or created have racked up 96 No. 1 singles and 79 No. 1 albums. In 2003 alone, he has sold 10 million records worldwide.
15 MINUTES OF FAME
Love it or loathe it, Fuller's boyish enthusiasm and uncanny ability to spot a hit, or a trend, and then hype it through recordings, spin-off TV shows, movies and tours have dominated the three biggest music territories in the world -- the United States, Britain and Germany.
Fuller started his career running local discos in southern Britain and later started managing British singer Annie Lennox -- a singer-songwriter whose raw talent and longevity seems at odds with Fuller's skill in exploiting the current public hunger for 15 minutes of fame.
But it was the manufactured 1990s group, The Spice Girls, with their gutsy girl-power message and catchy dance tunes, with which he really made his name.
"My ideas always reflect the time that we live in and are very much a barometer of where the planet is. The Spice Girls very much reflected a particular time, and 'Idol' reflects another," Fuller said.
His 'Idol' TV reality search for wannabe pop stars, which began in Britain two years ago as "Pop Idol" and which took the United States by storm as "American Idol," has proved an even bigger hit.
"I'm embarrassed to say I've lost count but I think we are in excess of 20 countries now, either airing ('Idol') or about to air. It will be pretty much everywhere," he said.
SPURNING LIMELIGHT
A junior version of 'Idol,' in which kids compete to form an instant pop group, is making waves in the United States and, yes, is already bound for at least six other countries.
Fuller himself spurns the limelight as much as he milks publicity for his young creations, rarely giving interviews and often being confused with "the other Simon" -- the tart-tongued British judge Simon Cowell on the "American Idol" and British "Pop Idol."
The mere mention of Fuller's name evokes extremes. "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson praised him as "the smartest man I've ever met" on the sleeve of her new album "Thankful." But to some other music industry insiders, he is known as the "evil Svengali."
"I've always been slightly misinterpreted or people forget chunks of what I do. People rarely acknowledge that I manage Annie Lennox, even though she is my longest standing artist. I guess that doesn't fit in with their image of me.
"To say he's really successful and he's actually quite a nice guy doesn't make for great headlines. I understand it, but I am a lot more complicated and versatile than is usually reported," he said.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jht ... ID=3021787